Summoner school, p.3
Summoner School, page 3
Her attention slid past me like I didn’t exist, and when her head turned I saw that her ears were pointed like an elf. Gold earrings lined the outside of her ear and matched a belt that cinched her waist. Her dress was made of a flowing material that rippled in the constant breeze, and slits ran up the skirt to reveal her muscular legs.
“I know, ugh,” a woman with pink hair groaned. “You’d think that they’d be more efficient. This is supposed to be the best school in all the dimensions. If they don’t hurry up, then I’m going to go back home. Really. It’s not as if I don’t know what I’m doing anyways. Right, Sarya?”
“I’m not sure I’d go that far,” the redheaded elf smirked. “You could definitely benefit from some tutelage.”
“Not all of us can be as amazing as you,” the pink-haired elf huffed.
“I know,” Sarya said as she tossed her hair back over her shoulder.
I gave the two haughty women a wide berth as I resumed my search for Atlesia. Even though the redhead was gorgeous, she seemed pretty stuck-up, and it seemed unlikely that she’d help me. But I was almost positive that those pointed ears were real, and that meant that she was actually an elf. If that were true, then the other people around me might be different types of magical creatures as well.
It was time to admit that this wasn’t Scotland or even England. My grandmother had sent me after a magical amulet that had transported me to some kind of fantasy world, and I could only guess how she knew about it. She definitely had a lot of explaining to do when I got back home.
“Whoa!” someone shouted from my right. “Watch where you’re going. You almost stepped on my hooves.”
I spun to look at the owner of the gravelly voice and saw a minotaur with long pointed horns tipped in gold. My heart sped up, and I took a step away from the guy as he loomed over another man with gossamer wings. The two stared each other down like they were about to go to war, and I watched in fascination.
Minotaurs in novels and video games were always aggressive, and this one seemed ready to fill that stereotype. His nose was flat like a bull’s, and a huge golden ring hung down over his thin lips. He had broad shoulders that tapered down into thin hips and ended in muscular legs. The hooves that he mentioned poked out from leather breeches and looked like they’d hit harder than a kangaroo kick.
“Is this guy bothering you, brother?” another minotaur asked as he walked up.
He was even bigger than the first man, and there was something in his eyes that made a shiver run up my spine. I had no doubt that he’d have no problem killing a person, but hopefully, there wouldn’t be any murders anytime soon.
“I’m fine, Rarus,” the younger minotaur sighed. “No need to start the year with a fight. You’re already on probation.”
“Hah,” Rarus snorted and leaned into the tiny man’s face. “He’s not going to report me. Is he?”
“N-No,” the shorter man said and then hurriedly flew away.
“Heh, pixies,” Rarus snorted.
The two brothers moved closer to the stage, and I heard the younger brother scold Rarus about his temper. Their horns looked like they’d been sharpened for the event, and the guys that were gored during the running of the bulls flashed across my mind. I was pretty sure that Rarus would use his fists first, but the guy looked like he loved violence, so I slipped into the crowd before he decided to pick a fight with me because I saw his intimidation tactics.
I caught a flash of lavender-colored hair and started toward it. There were a lot more elves than any other species, and all of them seemed to be just as snobbish as the redhead. There was no shortage of fine clothes and jewelry anywhere in the crowd, and even the humans seemed like they were from wealthy families with their name-brand clothes and perfect hair.
“This is terrifying,” a dwarf with a long beard said. “I should’ve just stayed in the mines.”
“No,” another dwarf said and shook their head. “I’m not going to spend my life mining all the jewels for other mages. Besides, you know that the gems always respond to us.”
“You more than me,” the first man said. “I don’t think that I belong here.”
“Where is here?” a human woman asked.
She looked like she was my age with bright blue eyes and dyed blonde hair. Her dark blue plaid skirt and torn black Ramones t-shirt were both stained with paint. She looked more like an artist, and she definitely didn’t look like she belonged in the same crowd as the hoity-toity elves or the guy in boat shoes and khakis that looked like he’d come straight from a yacht.
“Humans,” a nearby elf said and rolled her eyes. “I can never understand why they even invite you. Your entire dimension pretends like magic doesn’t exist.”
“Right,” the artsy girl said and looked the woman up and down. “And you’re supposed to be the ideal? Please, I could paint a better face than yours with uncleaned brushes.”
I pursed my lips together to keep from laughing and quickly dodged back into the crowd. Tensions were definitely high, but at least I wasn’t the only one that felt out of place, and that made it easier to blend in. I gave the minotaurs and the elves their distance, and finally spotted the purple-haired girl surrounded by other pixies.
Her laughter wove through the crowd like tinkling bells, and the other fairies joined in. The pixies and fairies seemed like the nicest of the magical creatures, though there were plenty of myths about them eating humans, and I didn’t want to test if any of those were real. One of the pink-haired girls with gossamer wings laughed at something and showed rows of sharp teeth.
I decided to hang back for a little while and try to catch up with Atlesia once the crowd thinned out a little. At least I knew more about where the amulet had taken me, and a magical school didn’t sound like the most dangerous place to end up in. As long as I didn’t have to prove anything, then everything would be just fine, and soon I’d go back and question my grandma.
“Do you know where the hell we are?” Another human asked as he caught up to me. “These people are really odd. It’s like I’m in one of those godawful nerd conventions.”
“Not a clue,” I said with a shrug. “Maybe we are just dreaming.”
The guy reminded me of every snobby douchebag that I’d ever met in high school. It was easy enough to deal with the rich kids since all they really wanted was someone to agree with them, but I had more important things to do than play butler. He barely even gave me a glance before he tried to get the redheaded elf’s attention, and it took all of my self-control not to laugh when she looked at him like he was pond scum.
“Good afternoon, everyone,” someone said from the stage.
I turned my attention in the direction of the voice and was surprised to find that he didn’t have a microphone. The podium still didn’t have any signs of technology, but the man’s voice was loud enough that everyone had heard him. The conversations slowly started to die down as we all looked at the man and the two people behind him.
He was dressed in dark purple robes that looked like every stereotypical wizard painting ever made, and his long white beard looked like it pooled on the top of the podium. The stage was far enough away that I couldn’t make out his eyes underneath his bushy eyebrows, but when his gaze swept my way, it felt like he looked directly at me. If he was in a book, then he’d be the sage professor leading the new heroes on adventures.
The two behind him could’ve been either teachers or bodyguards. The man to his left looked more like a lizard than a man with a long scaly green snout and a tail that curled around his feet. His black shirt and leather pants were loose enough that he could jump around, but tight enough to show off powerful muscles like he spent most of the time at the gym. He had his clawed hands clasped in front of him, and his black eyes swept across the crowd constantly.
The woman to the right of the wizard looked more like a teacher than the lizard-man, but there was a stern look on her face that made me think she’d slap me with a ruler if I misbehaved. Her ebony hair was pulled back into a perfect bun, and black scales underneath her cheekbones added to her sharp look. A pair of silver-rimmed glasses perched on the end of her nose, and her pink lips looked as soft as rose petals. She was the perfect mix of hot professor and strict librarian, and the chorus of Van Halen’s Hot For Teacher rushed to the front of my mind.
“Welcome to Magia Schola,” the wizard continued when the last conversations ended. “For those of you who don’t know Latin yet, that means School of Magic. Don’t worry, by the time you graduate from this university, you’ll know far more languages than just Latin.”
He chuckled to himself like it was an inside joke, and the hot teacher rolled her eyes. I glanced around and saw that everyone else looked just as confused about the laughter, and a little tension drained out of my shoulders. The wizard cleared his throat, ran a hand over his beard, and then nodded to himself.
“Right,” he said. “My name is Alec Enzaron, but you can just refer to me as Headmaster.”
“That’s the headmaster?” one of the dwarves whispered to his friend. “I thought he was supposed to be super powerful.”
“And so I am, young Gimon,” the headmaster said and looked directly at the dwarf. “But you won’t be seeing a demonstration of my power until much later in your college career. For the moment, we should focus on all of you. Many of you come from worlds in which magic runs rampant. You may think that you’ve already experienced your own. However, until the ceremony that takes place here, your powers are still dormant. Any tricks that you’ve picked up are only a fraction of what you can do. If you haven’t had any experience with magic yet, don’t worry, you will. Everyone who is brought to Magia Schola has potential. Every living creature has magic in them, but only those who have passed through these hallowed halls have learned to bring it to the surface and master it.”
“I doubt that the humans have much to offer,” the redheaded elf sniffed and looked down her nose at the rich boy. “After all, their home world doesn’t even like to admit that it exists.”
“Ms. Kaylen,” the headmaster said. “You are correct that the humans may have a steeper learning curve, but I assure you they belong here just as much as you.”
“Of course, Headmaster,” the elven woman said with a small curtsy. “I only meant that it will be difficult for them to keep up.”
I watched the interaction between them with a neutral face so that I didn’t draw attention to myself. The headmaster seemed to know everyone’s names, but it wasn’t like I could sneak away at the moment, and I still needed to know how to get back home. My best chance was to go along until the ceremony was over and then find that lavender-haired girl and ask her for help.
My grandmother must’ve planned to use the amulet to come to the ceremony to meet someone, but I had no way to know who that was. The headmaster was around her age, or at least he looked like it, but magical creatures might age differently, and I wasn’t entirely convinced he was as human as he seemed. Either way, I still needed to take the amulet back to the nursing home and find out just what my grandma was involved in.
“But not impossible,” the headmaster finished the conversation with a smile. “Now, back to my speech. Where was I? Oh, yes. During today’s ritual, each of you will come up to the stage where Zinlar will taste you and detect your magical affinity. I’m sure for the most part it won’t be a surprise. As I said, most of you have already had some experience with your magic even if it’s not to your full potential. If you’ve summoned plants, then it’s likely that your affinity will be for the earth and Sorcerous Botany. There’s always a few shocks, but--“
“Headmaster,” the ebony-haired woman interrupted. “There are a lot of students. We should begin.”
I stared at the old man like he’d lost his mind, or maybe it was me that was crazy, but he’d said that somebody would taste us. My attention went to the lizard-man to the left of the podium and a shiver ran up my spine. I had to have heard that wrong. The headmaster must’ve said test, not taste, that or things were about to become really weird.
“Ah, yes,” the older man nodded. “You’re right about that, Ira. Alright, please line up and come up to the stage one person at a time. Once your affinity has been revealed, then we can take you back to the school and get everything else sorted.”
The crowd started to move in the direction of the stage, and more teachers appeared to help organize the line. I stayed toward the back and pulled the amulet back out of my pocket so I could look at it. The moonstone was still as inert as it had been since it’d brought me here, and I sighed and shoved it out of sight.
A few people around me had taken out similar amulets and stared at theirs. I was surprised to see that not all of them were human, though their struggle was probably a debate about running away and not how to get the thing to work in the first place. I did notice that all of the gems were moonstone even if the pendant, size, and shape were different from my grandmother’s.
“This is the weirdest dream that I’ve ever had,” the rich guy said and looked around. “I’m guessing that someone spiked my drink. That’s what I get for partying with the nouveau riche. They’re always trying to get high.”
“Sure,” I said with a shrug. “Naturally.”
The man nodded his head and wandered off, and I resumed my search for the lavender-haired girl. There were plenty of other people that could probably help me, but she was cute, and a lot more friendly than anyone else in the crowd. The snobby elf woman might send me home, but she might also send me to a swamp with creatures ready to eat me. Atlesia had seemed like a genuinely good person, and that was exactly what I needed at the moment.
“Is that a minotaur?” a blue-haired woman asked from in front of me. “I know the headmaster said that everyone has magic, but how much can a minotaur really have? They’re sailors. It doesn’t take a lot of magic to navigate a ship.”
“Sssh!” a pink-skinned man hushed the woman and glanced over at the two bull-men. “My brother said that there’s a minotaur in his class that is really good at magic. Like, specifically battle magic. And he’s not afraid to use it in a fight. I heard that he might’ve even killed someone. They’re terrifying.”
“Ugh,” the woman groaned. “A minotaur who’s good with magic is like a bull in a glass store. They’re just dumb enough to be dangerous.”
I let a few more people pass in front of me to put distance between the two pixies and myself. Their conversation was just loud enough that the two minotaurs were bound to hear it, and I had no intention of being caught in that fight. I’d played enough video games where my character was stuck in the middle of a brawl and was killed by a stray knife or something, and the way the minotaurs’ horns glinted in the afternoon light was a not so subtle reminder of those ignominious deaths.
A few students had already made it across the stage and stood off to the side with the others. The line seemed to move pretty fast, and I guessed that it had more to do with the hot teacher that guided everyone than the gray-bearded Headmaster. It would be my turn in no time, and then they’d realize that I didn’t belong there.
I glanced around for an exit, but the natural amphitheater didn’t have any stairs, and someone was bound to see me if I tried to climb the hill. The amulet felt heavy in my pocket as the line surged forward, and I made the decision just to confess that I had accidentally come here instead of my grandma and ask to go home. It wasn’t a bad plan, and the kooky old Headmaster would probably laugh it off before he sent me on my way.
“Mr. Hall,” the headmaster’s bouncer broke through my rampant thoughts. “Andrew.”
“How do you know my name?” I blurted out.
“I know every student’s name,” the gray-bearded man said with a shrug.
“About that,” I said and started to climb the stairs to the stage. “There’s been some kind of mistake. I don’t belong here. Actually, I’m pretty sure--“
“If you’re here, then you’re meant to be here, Mr. Hall,” the headmaster interrupted and held up a hand to stop any further arguments. “Now, it’s time for you to learn your affinity. Step right up. You’re next.”
I looked in front of me and saw the redheaded elf close her eyes and cringe away from the lizard-man. The scaly guy towered over both of us as he bent down to run his tongue over the woman’s cheek. I took an involuntary step back as I realized that the headmaster really had said taste and not test.
“Ms. Sarya Kaylan, your affinity is fire,” Zinlar said in a gravelly voice.
“Of course, it is,” Sarya said and produced a handkerchief to wipe off the spit. “As if there was ever any doubt.”
“Really,” I said as the headmaster ushered me forward. “This is the only way for you to tell a person’s magical abilities?”
“Oh, no,” the old man laughed. “But I think it’s funny. And Zinlar is never wrong, unlike some of the other methods for testing. Now, let’s see what magic you have, Mr. Hall.”
I swallowed hard as the lizard-man’s mouth opened, and his tongue unfurled like a chameleon’s. If there was really magic in me, then I wanted to know what kind it was, but the method was disgusting.
And the guy had enough teeth that he could bite my head clean off.
I couldn’t help but wonder if that was the real plan.
Chapter 3
It took all of my self-control not to recoil from Zinlar’s tongue. I swear it was even longer than when he’d licked the snobby supermodel elf, but it wasn’t like there was anywhere for me to go, and if there was magic in me, then I wanted to know. My grandma must have had the spark, and it could run in the family.
The lizard-man ran his tongue over my cheek, closed his eyes, and then nodded to himself like the conclusion was obvious. I used my shirt to wipe off the spit and tried not to gag in front of all the onlookers. Zinlar opened his black eyes, studied me for a second, and then turned to look at the headmaster and the hot teacher.
